Repeat exchange transfusion for treatment of severe babesiosis

Abstract

We report a case of severe babesiosis presenting with 43% parasitemia in a 73-year-old splenectomized woman on etanercept for rheumatoid arthritis. She initially was treated aggressively with clindamycin and quinine and exchange transfusion. Despite a post-exchange drop in parasitemia to 7.6%, it rebounded to 11.4% on hospital day 5 accompanied by new onset high fevers and hypoxia. She improved after a second exchange transfusion and ultimately resolved her infection after 12 weeks of antibabesial antibiotics. Although exchange transfusion is commonly used in immunocompromised hosts, there is a dearth of information about repeat exchange transfusion, including the risk for and outcome of repeat exchange. We performed a literature search for other cases of repeat exchange transfusion for severe Babesia microti infection and compared our case with those in other published reports.

Keywords: Babesia microti infection; Babesiosis; Exchange transfusion; Immunocompromised.